1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a system including apparatus, software and methods for organizing content from a variety of sources to be presented in a unified manner such as on a Web page.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World Wide Web (xe2x80x9cWWWxe2x80x9d) has quickly become the vehicle for delivery of information inside and outside of organizations. Inside organizations Intranets deliver information to workers in an easily accessible manner. Outside organizations the Internet delivers information to the public at large. Information is delivered in units referred to herein as content. Content is basically any item (in whatever size or demarcation is most useful) of information, be it textual, graphical, audio, executable, or otherwise delivered to a user or viewer. Content is delivered by xe2x80x9cweb serversxe2x80x9d in pages using embedded formatting tags readable by programs called xe2x80x9cbrowsers.xe2x80x9d
In general, content on the WWW is created and maintained manually either by a dedicated xe2x80x9cWeb Masterxe2x80x9d or by some knowledgeable person in his or her spare time. While some attempts have been made to automate the creation and maintenance of web pages, these attempts have been limited. Currently, there exists no system for creating and managing content on the WWW that enables content creators, such as graphic artists, copy writers, programmers, and editors, to create content for the web using tools with which they are familiar and not have to worry about integration of their content into Web pages. Further, no current system places content into a structure which enables automated management.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a content management system that allows content creators to work on specific pieces of content with familiar tools while maintaining the content in a format native to such tools.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a content management system that facilitates the separation of tasks into logical units.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a content management system that places content into a logical data structure separate from organizational and formatting components simplifying maintenance.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a data repository that facilitates retrieval and modification of information.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an automated content management system for web sites that facilitates creation and maintenance thereof.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a content management system that facilitates dynamic real time creation of web type pages.
The above objects can be obtained by a content management system comprising: a repository separately storing content, an organizational component of the content and a format component of the content; and a content management system server that accesses the organizational component of the content and creates a display of the content based on the organizational component in accordance with the format component of the content.
The above objects can also be achieved in a content management system for dynamically creating world wide web pages comprising: a repository separately storing content for the web pages, an organizational component of the content and a format component of the content; and a content management system server that receives a request from a web server for a web page and, in real time, accesses the organizational component of the content and creates a web page for the content based on the organization component in accordance with the format component of the content.
The above objects can also be achieved in a method of dynamically creating a web page from existing content comprising: storing content of the web page in a format native to the tools used to create the content; storing a separate format component of the web page indicating how to display the web page; storing a separate outline of the web page indicating a hierarchy of the content on the web page and the format component for the web page; and when requested assembling the web page, in real time, by accessing the outline of the web page, retrieving the content and format component referenced in the outline, organizing the content based on the outline of the web page and formatting the content based on the format component.
The above objects can also be achieved in a computer-readable medium encoded with a data structure for a content management system separating content from an organizational component and a format component thereof, the data structure comprising: a table indexing sites to a site ID; a table indexing a document to the site ID using a document ID; a table indexing an outline to document ID using an outline ID; a table indexing at least one section to an outline ID using a section ID; a table indexing content to each section ID; and a table indexing a formatting component to an outline ID.
These together with other objects and advantages which will be subsequently apparent, reside in the details of construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part hereof, wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout.